


Fool Me Twice

by dear_monday



Series: As Simple As Faith [3]
Category: Bandom, Cobra Starship, The Academy Is...
Genre: Crossover: American Gods, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-12
Updated: 2012-02-12
Packaged: 2017-10-30 23:49:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,711
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/337569
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dear_monday/pseuds/dear_monday
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Gabe reads people like cheaply-printed magazines; it's what he does best. But for all he's been able to learn about Bill, the boy might as well be completely blank. Gabe doesn't know him from anywhere except the last time they saw each other, although that doesn't mean shit these days. Gods are rootless like they've never been before, buying plane tickets and crappy airport novels and following the people who believe in them. Bill could be anyone. Anything.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fool Me Twice

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Verbyna](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Verbyna/gifts), [dapatty](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dapatty/gifts).



> **warnings for alcohol abuse, implied drug abuse and what could be seen as minor consent issues.**
> 
>  
> 
> for both of the people who convinced me that trickster!Gabe needed to happen ♥
> 
>  
> 
>  **EDIT!** There are now two fabulous podfics of this! One by [](http://dapatty.dreamwidth.org/profile)[**dapatty**](http://dapatty.dreamwidth.org/) at [LJ](http://dapatty.livejournal.com/86431.html) or [DW](http://dapatty.dreamwidth.org/6112.html), and one by [quintenttsy](http://archiveofourown.org/users/quintenttsy/pseuds/quintenttsy) at [AO3](http://archiveofourown.org/works/377069) :D

Gabe's drunk, he's so drunk. He doesn't know how many drinks; one-two-skip-a-few-ninety-nine-a-hundred. He's drunk enough that the boy looks unreal and there-but-not-there, flickering in and out of existence under the club's lights. He tells the boy this, calls him _ho-lo-gra-phic_ and says it twice just because the word feels good in his mouth. The boy laughs and his teeth are a pale crescent moon in the dark, and Gabe tells him this, too. The boy tells Gabe he's weird, but he dances with Gabe anyway, hot and close. He's got a weird kind of grace, like he's Other, like he's like Gabe, like he _knows_. Gabe wonders what he is, but the heat and the closeness of the boy leave his head too full of other things to ask questions.  
  
It's easy-easy-easy to charm the boy into coming home with Gabe, because when Gabe's sober he won't control himself and when he's this far gone he can't. Gabe tells the boy he's pretty and means it, and he can almost see the boy's laughter in the air, warm and golden in the inky chill.  
  
  


~

  
  
The next morning _hurts_. Gabe's head spins and pounds resentfully. The sunlight is burrowing deep into his skull, and he groans. It's an effort to drag himself upright to heave his guts up in the bathroom, but he's learnt the hard way that all his charms are for shit if there's no one around to do the dirty jobs for him.  
  
The bedroom is empty when he gets back, doesn't surprise him, but it's a pity. He opens a window to let the clinging reek of sweat and booze out, and he can't help thinking abstractedly that a hot mouth on his cock would be the perfect distraction from the throbbing pain in his head. It doesn't look like there's much chance of that, though, so instead, he'll sleep it off and con a free lunch out of someone later.  
  
Perfect.  
  


  


~

  
  
It's another night and he's drunk again, as much on the thrill of tricking his drinks out of the willing bartender as on the alcohol warming his blood. He's not expecting to see the boy this time, but it isn't the surprise it should be – when you've known the Fates for long enough, nothing is an accident anymore, and Charlotte always had a sense of humor.  
  
This time, they end up gasping and panting in the alley behind the bar, the rough bricks scraping Gabe's shoulderblades through his t-shirt and the boy's hips rocking against Gabe's in a slow, dirty grind. When the boy finally shudders and then stills against Gabe, beautiful and incandescent in the dark, his teeth sink into his own lower lip and he looks – breakable. It's got to be an act, but Gabe appreciates the craft of it. He'd be no trickster if he couldn't admire a good trick.  
  
It feels like the first twitch of the kind of obsession that Gabe will trick and cheat and lie for, the kind that will keep him awake for days, and it's good. There's nothing worse than being bored. This time, he remembers to ask for a name before the boy slips away again. _Bill_. This won't be the last they see of each other, Gabe's sure of it. He'll _make_ sure of it.  
  
Afterwards, it's much harder to wash Bill away than it was last time. Gabe reads people like cheaply-printed magazines; it's what he does best. But for all he's been able to learn about Bill, the boy might as well be completely blank. Gabe doesn't know him from anywhere except the last time they saw each other, although that doesn't mean shit these days. Gods are rootless like they've never been before, buying plane tickets and crappy airport novels and following the people who believe in them. Bill could be anyone. Anything. It's some game Bill's playing, keeping everything so close to his thin chest that Gabe has absolutely nothing to go on, nothing he can use – and all without looking like he's even trying.  
  


  


~

  
  
It isn't the last time, but somehow they're always too busy drinking or dancing or fucking to do much else. Gabe knows what Bill sounds like when he comes, knows he likes it when Gabe leaves marks, knows how he smiles when he's wasted and how his hipbones look with finger-shaped bruises curled over them. Gabe has absolutely no idea where Bill comes from or what he is or what human devotionals make him glow the way he does. Bill can only be a young god, Gabe thinks, one night when he's too buzzed to sleep and too fucked-out to stay awake. Gabe's seen what the other end of that spectrum looks like, the gods who don't aren't long for this dirty, crowded world. They don't look like Bill, but there's... something. It's in the way Bill holds himself, in the long line of his spine and the way he's never still. It gnaws at Gabe constantly, but it's always too quick and slippery for him to pinpoint. He asks once, when they're both lazy and afterglow-bright. _What are you, Bilvy?_ Bill looks down at the time on his cell phone, laughs, answers _I'm late_ , and leaves.  
  
Gabe wonders sometimes if Bill's so reluctant because he's the god of something embarrassing, but then the light will catch Bill's eyes or his smile, and Gabe will think, no. There's more to it than that.  
  
Gabe promises himself that he'll figure Bill out. There's still something about the boy he can't quite put his finger on (irony of ironies, he thinks dryly, because in the literal sense he's got no problem at all with that), and he's going to dig it out of Bill if it kills him.  
  


  


~

  
  
In the end, it's almost too easy.  
  
"I mean," says Bill easily, gesturing with his drink. He's three beers into the evening and his words are blurring at the edges. Later, he'll be pliant and boneless, all smiles and warm skin, but now he's all lit up with this revolutionary optimism. It's a cliché, Gabe thinks, such a fucking line, but he's sort of breathtaking like this. "I mean, I'm a year out of college. There's still so much _time_ to do the music thing, right?"  
  
And it hits Gabe right between the eyes.  
  
 _Human_.  
  
Bill's nothing, never was. Just human, and so fucking _young_ it hurts to look at him. Gabe looks at Bill again and he doesn't understand how he couldn't see it. It's so _obvious now_ , it was never faith that made Bill shine the way he does. He's practically fucking newborn. It's rolling off him, leaking out of every pore and _Gabe couldn't see it_. This kid, this unsuspecting human kid, has beaten him at his own game without even trying.  
  
Gabe makes his excuses and leaves.  
  


  


~

  
  
Gabe starts drinking and doesn't stop, never letting the hangover catch up with him so he won't have to think about it. There are other things, too, not just the booze but pills that make him see in brighter colors and warm, willing bodies that don't come with names or faces. Human bodies, all different and all the same. If he's going to lose his touch he's going to do it spectacularly. If he's going to be no better than an unobservant human blinded by a pretty face then he's going to _be_ one of them, get himself so tangled up with them that by the time someone comes to pull him out they won't know the difference. He's going to bury himself in them.  
  
If he sees Bill again, he doesn't remember.

~

  
  
Gabe wakes up in a bathtub with one shoe missing and a bridal garter twisted around his wrist. He's wearing a shirt that isn't his, and no pants. It's his bathtub, he's pretty sure, and if that's true there's a good chance that this is his bathroom and maybe even his apartment. This is probably what dying feels like.  
  
Bill is sitting cross-legged on the floor, watching him with an odd expression that Gabe's in no shape to read.  
  
Gabe licks his lips. His mouth tastes foul. "You're a fuckin' creep, Bilvy," he croaks, and Bill cracks a small, tight smile. "No, really," he says. "Voyeurism. Kinky. I like that."  
  
"Ha ha," says Bill, but he isn't smiling anymore. He sits back, folding his arms "So you're still alive, you stupid fucker."  
  
Gabe gestures down at himself. He's missing something here but his head hurts too much for him to work it out. "Mostly."  
  
There's a long silence, and then Bill says, "You're a dick. What the _fuck_."  
  
"You're a _human_. What the fuck."  
  
Bill's eyes are narrowed, and Gabe realizes too late that he's angry. Gabe can smell it, thick and sharp and metallic.  
  
"Yeah? Jesus Christ--" (Gabe flinches) "I was worried, you asshole."  
  
Gabe chuckles humorlessly, then stops when it makes his head throb and bile rise in his throat. "Why?"  
  
Bill's expression shifts, pissed to hurt. Fuck.  
  
"Sure," he says, standing up so he can look down at Gabe, haloed by the bright electric lights. His shirt looks stiff and unwashed, and he smells stale. Gabe wonders how long he's been here. "Sure, I'm being totally unreasonable. You were trying to kill yourself. Why would I be worried? I know we weren't..." he lets out a short, irritated breath. "You know what? I'll go."  
  
"Wait."  
  
Bill turns back, and something in Gabe twists.  
  
"C'mon, I didn't mean that. Stay." He swallows, takes a moment to arrange the words in his head. He tries, sometimes, but honesty doesn't come naturally to him. He wants Bill to hear this. "I'm a liar. I cheat. I'm a fucking awful person. What are you doing, worrying about me?"  
  
"Oh, fuck you," Bill snaps, too loud in the small room. "Don't give me that. If this is about how I'm too young to make my own bad decisions or something, I will _end_ you, I don't give a shit how hungover you are."  
  
He stands there, unwashed and barefoot on the tiles and towering over Gabe. Mortal and stupid and fierce.  
  
And _still here_.  
  
Gabe wants to laugh again, because – here. Still here. _His_. "Okay," he says. "Okay."


End file.
